DOCSLIB.ORG

Inflation, Inflation Expectations, and the Phillips Curve

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Inflation, Inflation Expectations, and the Phillips Curve Working Paper Series Congressional Budget Office Washington, D.C. Inflation, Inflation Expectations, and the Phillips Curve Yiqun Gloria Chen Congressional Budget Office [email protected] Working Paper 2019-07 August 2019 To enhance the transparency of the work of the Congressional Budget Office and to encourage external review of that work, CBO’s working paper series includes papers that provide technical descriptions of official CBO analyses as well as papers that represent independent research by CBO analysts. Papers in this series are available at http://go.usa.gov/ULE. This paper has not been subject to CBO’s regular review and editing process. The views expressed here should not be interpreted as CBO’s. The author thanks the following CBO staff for their comments and suggestions: Robert Arnold, Wendy Edelberg, Kim Kowalewski (formerly of CBO), and Jeffrey Werling. The author also thanks Alan Detmeister of UBS, Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs, David Lebow of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and James Stock of Harvard University for their useful feedback. www.cbo.gov/publication/55501 Abstract This paper studies the current state of inflation dynamics through the lens of the Phillips curve and assesses the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations. I first estimate a Phillips curve model with both past inflation and a constant anchor as explanatory variables over the 1999– 2018 period for a variety of measures of consumer prices. My results show that the Phillips curve has shifted away from an accelerationist form toward a level form, but that shift is incomplete, particularly for core inflation. I then turn to survey measures of professional forecasters’ and consumers’ inflation expectations and assess the degree to which those expectations are anchored. My analysis shows that although professional forecasters’ expectations have been well anchored, consumers’ expectations have not. Further analysis using multiple empirical measures of inflation expectations suggests that in the context of the Phillips curve, consumers’ expectations have generally outperformed professional forecasters’ expectations in terms of explaining and forecasting the dynamics of inflation over the past two decades. In addition to analyzing the form of inflation expectations in the Phillips curve model, this paper examines the slope of the Phillips curve, or the sensitivity of inflation to cyclical fluctuations in economic conditions. I follow Stock and Watson (2018) and estimate the Phillips curve for various components of aggregate inflation. The results show that whereas price changes for many service categories (particularly shelter) and food remain largely procyclical, price changes for most goods have been either noncyclical or countercyclical over the past two decades. That finding helps explain the flatness of the Phillips curve on the aggregate level as well as the variation in cyclical sensitivity among the different aggregate inflation measures. Keywords: inflation, Phillips curve, business cycle, inflation expectations, anchoring JEL Classification: E17, E31, E37 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 2. Ten Measures of Inflation ........................................................................................................... 8 Overall Inflation ..................................................................................................................... 8 Core Inflation ......................................................................................................................... 9 3. Reestimating the Phillips Curve................................................................................................ 14 Benchmark Specifications ................................................................................................... 14 Estimation Results ............................................................................................................... 16 Cyclical Sensitivity: A Component-Level Analysis ............................................................ 21 4. Inflation Expectations ............................................................................................................... 23 Are Inflation Expectations Anchored?................................................................................. 24 Whose Inflation Expectations Matter?................................................................................. 34 5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 36 Appendix A. Stability Checks....................................................................................................... 38 Appendix B. Inflation Expectations of Financial Market Participants ......................................... 40 Appendix C. The Phillips Curve With Survey Measures of Inflation Expectations .................... 41 References ..................................................................................................................................... 52 1. Introduction From the “great inflation” of the 1970s to the “missing disinflation” of 2009 to 2011, the dynamics of inflation in the United States has changed profoundly over the past six decades (see Figure 1). To a large extent, that evolution is both a cause and a consequence of the changing nature of inflation expectations over the same period (see Figure 2). This paper examines the current state of inflation through the lens of the reduced-form Phillips curve—a regression model that links the dynamics of inflation to inflation expectations and the state of the real economy— and assesses the current properties of inflation expectations. The degree of stability in inflation depends critically on the properties of inflation expectations, particularly, whether they are anchored or not. Because unanchored expectations tend to correlate heavily with past inflation (a phenomenon known as backward-looking or adaptive inflation expectations), they can serve as an “accelerator” for the effects of excess or shortfall in demand in the labor and product markets and for the effects of transitory shocks from the supply side of the economy—such as a sudden rise in the price of oil or a sudden change in the exchange value of the U.S. dollar—by forming a feedback loop between inflation expectations and actual inflation. As a result, inflation tends to rise or fall persistently when expectations are unanchored and the economy is in disequilibrium. By contrast, perfectly anchored inflation expectations do not respond to transitory shocks (that is, they are “shock anchored”) and can be tied to a particular level specified by a central bank that sets a target for inflation (a process known as level anchoring; see Ball and Mazumder, 2011). As a result, inflation tends to stay relatively stable when expectations are anchored. Inflation dynamics in the United States from the late 1960s through the mid-1990s are considered to be generally consistent with the characteristics of an “accelerationist” regime. Trend inflation, as measured by the five-year average rate of annual growth in the personal consumption price (PCE) price index, rose persistently from less than 2 percent in mid-1960s to over 8 percent in the late 1970s and early 1980s before falling gradually back to around 2 percent by the mid-1990s. Over the same period, empirical measures of inflation expectations also rose and fell persistently, generally tracking actual inflation but with a considerable lag. To model the inflation dynamics during that period, economists have used an “accelerationist” Phillips curve model in which inflation expectations are modeled by distributed lags of past inflation with the coefficients summing up to 1 (or close to 1). Since the late 1990s, by contrast, inflation dynamics appear to have shifted away from the accelerationist regime, and both inflation and inflation expectations have stayed remarkably stable despite large economic fluctuations (see Figure 3). In particular, following the financial crisis and the recession of 2007–2009, a large unemployment gap opened up that took several years to close. (The unemployment rate rose from 4.5 percent in mid-2007 to nearly 10 percent by late 2009 and stayed above 5 percent until 2016.) The accelerationist Phillips curve 1 Figure 1: U.S. Inflation Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis. 2 Figure 2: Inflation and Inflation Expectations The extended series of professional forecasters’ long-run inflation expectations was taken from the FRB/US model created by the Federal Reserve Board. The FRB/US series is based on data from two surveys: the long-run inflation expectations reported in the Hoey survey of financial market participants from 1981 to 1991Q3 and the median forecasts of long-run CPI or PCE inflation reported in the Survey of Professional Forecasters from 1991Q4 onward, with a downward adjustment of 40 basis points made to the CPI forecasts (all pre-2007 data) to put them on a PCE basis. The extended series of professional forecasters’ short-run inflation expectations is based on one-year ahead CPI inflation expectations reported in the Livingston Survey from 1947 to 1981Q2 and in the Survey of Professional Forecasters from 1981Q3 onward. Data from the Livingston survey were adjusted by Haver Analytics and interpolated to put semiannual data on a quarterly
Load more

Recommended publications
  • After the Phillips Curve: Persistence of High Inflation and High Unemployment
    Conference Series No. 19 BAILY BOSWORTH FAIR FRIEDMAN HELLIWELL KLEIN LUCAS-SARGENT MC NEES MODIGLIANI MOORE MORRIS POOLE SOLOW WACHTER-WACHTER % FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF BOSTON AFTER THE PHILLIPS CURVE: PERSISTENCE OF HIGH INFLATION AND HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT Proceedings of a Conference Held at Edgartown, Massachusetts June 1978 Sponsored by THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF BOSTON THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF BOSTON CONFERENCE SERIES NO. 1 CONTROLLING MONETARY AGGREGATES JUNE, 1969 NO. 2 THE INTERNATIONAL ADJUSTMENT MECHANISM OCTOBER, 1969 NO. 3 FINANCING STATE and LOCAL GOVERNMENTS in the SEVENTIES JUNE, 1970 NO. 4 HOUSING and MONETARY POLICY OCTOBER, 1970 NO. 5 CONSUMER SPENDING and MONETARY POLICY: THE LINKAGES JUNE, 1971 NO. 6 CANADIAN-UNITED STATES FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS SEPTEMBER, 1971 NO. 7 FINANCING PUBLIC SCHOOLS JANUARY, 1972 NO. 8 POLICIES for a MORE COMPETITIVE FINANCIAL SYSTEM JUNE, 1972 NO. 9 CONTROLLING MONETARY AGGREGATES II: the IMPLEMENTATION SEPTEMBER, 1972 NO. 10 ISSUES .in FEDERAL DEBT MANAGEMENT JUNE 1973 NO. 11 CREDIT ALLOCATION TECHNIQUES and MONETARY POLICY SEPBEMBER 1973 NO. 12 INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS of STABILIZATION POLICIES JUNE 1974 NO. 13 THE ECONOMICS of a NATIONAL ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER SYSTEM OCTOBER 1974 NO. 14 NEW MORTGAGE DESIGNS for an INFLATIONARY ENVIRONMENT JANUARY 1975 NO. 15 NEW ENGLAND and the ENERGY CRISIS OCTOBER 1975 NO. 16 FUNDING PENSIONS: ISSUES and IMPLICATIONS for FINANCIAL MARKETS OCTOBER 1976 NO. 17 MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NOVEMBER, 1976 NO. 18 KEY ISSUES in INTERNATIONAL BANKING OCTOBER, 1977 CONTENTS Opening Remarks FRANK E. MORRIS 7 I. Documenting the Problem 9 Diagnosing the Problem of Inflation and Unemployment in the Western World GEOFFREY H.
    [Show full text]
  • Downward Nominal Wage Rigidities Bend the Phillips Curve
    FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF SAN FRANCISCO WORKING PAPER SERIES Downward Nominal Wage Rigidities Bend the Phillips Curve Mary C. Daly Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Bart Hobijn Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, VU University Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute January 2014 Working Paper 2013-08 http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/papers/2013/wp2013-08.pdf The views in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Downward Nominal Wage Rigidities Bend the Phillips Curve MARY C. DALY BART HOBIJN 1 FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF SAN FRANCISCO FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF SAN FRANCISCO VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM, AND TINBERGEN INSTITUTE January 11, 2014. We introduce a model of monetary policy with downward nominal wage rigidities and show that both the slope and curvature of the Phillips curve depend on the level of inflation and the extent of downward nominal wage rigidities. This is true for the both the long-run and the short-run Phillips curve. Comparing simulation results from the model with data on U.S. wage patterns, we show that downward nominal wage rigidities likely have played a role in shaping the dynamics of unemployment and wage growth during the last three recessions and subsequent recoveries. Keywords: Downward nominal wage rigidities, monetary policy, Phillips curve. JEL-codes: E52, E24, J3. 1 We are grateful to Mike Elsby, Sylvain Leduc, Zheng Liu, and Glenn Rudebusch, as well as seminar participants at EIEF, the London School of Economics, Norges Bank, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Edinburgh for their suggestions and comments.
    [Show full text]
  • Karl Marx's Thoughts on Functional Income Distribution - a Critical Analysis
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Herr, Hansjörg Working Paper Karl Marx's thoughts on functional income distribution - a critical analysis Working Paper, No. 101/2018 Provided in Cooperation with: Berlin Institute for International Political Economy (IPE) Suggested Citation: Herr, Hansjörg (2018) : Karl Marx's thoughts on functional income distribution - a critical analysis, Working Paper, No. 101/2018, Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE), Berlin This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/175885 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Institute for International Political Economy Berlin Karl Marx’s thoughts on functional income distribution – a critical analysis Author: Hansjörg Herr Working Paper, No.
    [Show full text]
  • '1E and on the Giannini Foundation J'
    l i37 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS, CALIF. 95616 University of California College of Agriculture Agricultural Experiment Station Berkeley, California ii. I ! J INFLATION AND AGRICULTURE by J. M.lTinley Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics, ~tk Associate Agricultural Economist in the Experiment Station '1e and on the Giannini Foundation j'. ' - A Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Farm Economics Association,, Reno" Nevada June 23, 24, and 25, 1937 re INFLATION AND AGRICULTURE J. M. Tinley College of Agriculture University of California What is inflation? The Encyclopaedia of tho Social Sc.iences states that the meaning an economist associates with the terms "inflation" or its opposite, "deflation," is apt to vary in accordance with his views regarding the money-credit-price mechanism. It then proceeds to enumerate a dozen or more definitions or variations of definitions by economists like Keynes, Cassels, and Laughlin. Still other definitions are given by Kemmerer, Hardy, and Mohr. To be in style I shall be presumptious enough to present my own dofinition or rather understanding of the term. The layman usually applies the terms inflation and deflation to increases or decreases in the general level of prices, regardless of the causes of such changes. Economists, however, usually apply the terms mainly to rapid price changes originating on the money•credit side of tho equation of exchange -­ changes in the volume of circulating media (including velocity) in relation to the volume of trade. Within recent years some economists (especially some New Deal economists) have given the terms a somewhat new meaning. They visualize some sort of a norm or stubiltzod price level.
    [Show full text]
  • The Austrian Theory of Money by Murray N
    The Austrian Theory of Money By Murray N. Rothbard [Reprinted from The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics, Edwin Dolan, ed. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1976), pp. 160-84.; The Logic of Action One: Method, Money, and the Austrian School (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1997), pp. 297-320. The pagination on this edition corresponds to the Logic edition.] The Austrian theory of money virtually begins and ends with Ludwig von Mises's monumental Theory of Money and Credit, published in 1912.1 Mises's fundamental accomplishment was to take the theory of marginal utility, built up by Austrian economists and other marginalists as the explanation for consumer demand and market price, and apply it to the demand for and the value, or the price, of money. No longer did the theory of money need to be separated from the general economic theory of individual action and utility, of supply, demand, and price; no longer did monetary theory have to suffer isolation in a context of "velocities of circulation," "price levels," and "equations of exchange." In applying the analysis of supply and demand to money, Mises used the Wicksteedian concept: supply is the total stock of a commodity at any given time; and demand is the total market demand to gain and hold cash balances, built up out of the marginal-utility rankings of units of money on the value scales of individuals on the market. The Wicksteedian concept is particularly appropriate to money for several reasons: first, because the supply of money is either extremely durable in relation to current production, as under the gold standard, or is determined exogenously to the market by government authority; and, second and most important, because money, uniquely among commodities desired and demanded on the market, is acquired not to be consumed, but to be held for later exchange.
    [Show full text]
  • Measures of Underlying Inflation and Their Role in the Conduct of Monetary Policy
    PROCEEDINGS June 1999 MEASURES OF UNDERLYING INFLATION AND THEIR ROLE IN THE CONDUCT OF MONETARY POLICY Proceedings of the workshop of central bank model builders held at the BIS on 18-19 February 1999 BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS Monetary and Economic Department Basel, Switzerland Note: The papers included in this volume are to be considered as working papers. They should be cited as working papers and considered preliminary drafts of any subsequent publication. They are reproduced here to make them easily available to anyone having an interest in the subject of the workshop because participation in the workshop is restricted to central banks. Although all papers have been screened for relevance to the subject matter of the workshop, they have not been subject to a rigorous refereeing process nor edited for form or content by the Bank for International Settlements. Copies of publications are available from: Bank for International Settlements Information, Press & Library Services CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland Fax: +41 61 / 280 91 00 and +41 61 / 280 81 00 This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). © Bank for International Settlements 1999. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced or translated provided the source is stated. ISBN 92-9131-072-7 PROCEEDINGS June 1999 MEASURES OF UNDERLYING INFLATION AND THEIR ROLE IN THE CONDUCT OF MONETARY POLICY Proceedings of the workshop of central bank model builders held at the BIS on 18-19 February 1999 BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS Monetary and Economic Department
    [Show full text]
  • The Return of the Wage Phillips Curve
    THE RETURN OF THE WAGE PHILLIPS CURVE Jordi Gal´ı CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona GSE Abstract The standard New Keynesian model with staggered wage setting is shown to imply a simple dynamic relation between wage inflation and unemployment. Under some assumptions, that relation takes a form similar to that found in empirical wage equations—starting from Phillips’ (1958) original work—and may thus be viewed as providing some theoretical foundations to the latter. The structural wage equation derived here is shown to account reasonably well for the comovement of wage inflation and the unemployment rate in the US economy, even under the strong assumption of a constant natural rate of unemployment. (JEL: E24, E31, E32) 1. Introduction The past decade has witnessed the emergence of a new popular framework for monetary policy analysis, the so-called New Keynesian (NK) model. The new framework combines some of the ingredients of Real Business Cycle theory (for example dynamic optimization, general equilibrium) with others that have a distinctive Keynesian flavor (for example monopolistic competition, nominal rigidities). Many important properties of the NK model hinge on the specification of its wage- setting block. While basic versions of that model, intended for classroom exposition, assume fully flexible wages and perfect competition in labor markets, the larger, more realistic versions (including those developed in-house at different central banks and policy institutions) typically assume staggered nominal wage setting which, following the lead of Erceg, Henderson, and Levin (2000), are modeled in a way symmetric to The editor in charge of this paper was Fabrizio Zilibotti.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to the VIX Index and Volatility Instruments Alexander Ryvkin Pace University
    Pace University DigitalCommons@Pace Honors College Theses Pforzheimer Honors College 2019 Volatility Products and their Uses: An Introduction to the VIX Index and Volatility Instruments Alexander Ryvkin Pace University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses Part of the Business Commons Recommended Citation Ryvkin, Alexander, "Volatility Products and their Uses: An Introduction to the VIX Index and Volatility Instruments" (2019). Honors College Theses. 230. https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses/230 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Pforzheimer Honors College at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Volatility Products and Their Uses 1 Volatility Products and their Uses An Introduction to the VIX Index and Volatility Instruments Pace University, Lubin School of Business Pforzheimer Honors College Majoring in Finance Presenting May 9th, 2019 Graduating May 18th, 2019 Examiner: Andrew Coggins By Alexander Ryvkin Volatility Products and Their Uses 2 Volatility Products and Their Uses 3 Abstract Volatility instruments are complex investment products that can be used to hedge or speculate based on changes in market sentiment and fluctuations in the S&P 500. These products offer a unique approach to protecting one’s portfolio and making strategic bets on future market volatility. However, lack of understanding of these products can be potentially dangerous as they can change dramatically in value within extremely short time-frames. Investors must be wary of using these products improperly; failure to adequately assess the risk of using volatility products can deliver devastating losses to one’s portfolio.
    [Show full text]
  • Recovering Keynesian Phillips Curve Theory: Hysteresis of Ideas and the Natural Rate of Unemployment
    A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Palley, Thomas Working Paper Recovering Keynesian Phillips Curve Theory: Hysteresis of Ideas and the Natural Rate of Unemployment FMM Working Paper, No. 26 Provided in Cooperation with: Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) at the Hans Boeckler Foundation Suggested Citation: Palley, Thomas (2018) : Recovering Keynesian Phillips Curve Theory: Hysteresis of Ideas and the Natural Rate of Unemployment, FMM Working Paper, No. 26, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK), Forum for Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies (FFM), Düsseldorf This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/181484 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu FMM WORKING PAPER No. 26 · June, 2018 · Hans-Böckler-Stiftung RECOVERING KEYNESIAN PHILLIPS CURVE THEORY: HYSTERESIS OF IDEAS AND THE NATURAL RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT Thomas Palley* ABSTRACT Economic theory is prone to hysteresis.
    [Show full text]
  • China After the Subprime Crisis
    China After the Subprime Crisis 9780230_281967_01_prexviii.indd i 9/1/2010 3:41:25 PM Also by Chi Lo: ASIA AND THE SUBPRIME CRISIS: Lifting the Veil on the Financial Tsunami UNDERSTANDING CHINA’S GROWTH: Forces that Drive China’s Economic Future PHANTOM OF THE CHINA ECONOMIC THREAT: Shadow of the Next Asian Crisis THE MISUNDERSTOOD CHINA: Uncovering the Truth behind the Bamboo Curtain WHEN ASIA MEETS CHINA IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: China’s Role in Shaping Asia’s Post-Crisis Economic Transformation 9780230_281967_01_prexviii.indd ii 9/1/2010 3:41:25 PM China After the Subprime Crisis Opportunities in the New Economic Landscape Chi Lo Chief Economist and Strategist for a Major Investment Management Company based in Hong Kong, China 9780230_281967_01_prexviii.indd iii 9/1/2010 3:41:25 PM © Chi Lo 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phillips Curve and U.S. Macroeconomic Policy: Snapshots, 1958-1996
    Economic Quarterly—Volume 94, Number 4—Fall 2008—Pages 311–359 The Phillips Curve and U.S. Macroeconomic Policy: Snapshots, 1958–1996 Robert G. King he curve first drawn by A.W. Phillips in 1958, highlighting a negative relationship between wage inflation and unemployment, figured T prominently in the theory and practice of macroeconomic policy during 1958–1996. Within a decade of Phillips’ analysis, the idea of a relatively stable long- run tradeoff between price inflation and unemployment was firmly built into policy analysis in the United States and other countries. Such a long-run tradeoff was at the core of most prominent macroeconometric models as of 1969. Over the ensuing decade, the United States and other countries experi- enced stagflation, a simultaneous rise of unemployment and inflation, which threw the consensus about the long-run Phillips curve into disarray. By the end of the 1970s, inflation was historically high—near 10 percent—and poised to rise further. Economists and policymakers stressed the role of shifting ex- pectations of inflation and differed widely on the costliness of reducing infla- tion, in part based on alternative views of the manner in which expectations were formed. In the early 1980s, the Federal Reserve System undertook an unwinding of inflation, producing a multiyear interval in which inflation fell substantially and permanently while unemployment rose substantially but temporarily. Although costly, the disinflation process involved lower unem- ployment losses than predicted by consensus macroeconomists, as rational expectations analysts had suggested that it would. The author is affiliated with Boston University, National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    [Show full text]
  • The Labor Market and the Phillips Curve
    4 The Labor Market and the Phillips Curve A New Method for Estimating Time Variation in the NAIRU William T. Dickens The non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) is fre- quently employed in fiscal and monetary policy deliberations. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office uses estimates of the NAIRU to compute potential GDP, that in turn is used to make budget projections that affect decisions about federal spending and taxation. Central banks consider estimates of the NAIRU to determine the likely course of inflation and what actions they should take to preserve price stability. A problem with the use of the NAIRU in policy formation is that it is thought to change over time (Ball and Mankiw 2002; Cohen, Dickens, and Posen 2001; Stock 2001; Gordon 1997, 1998). But estimates of the NAIRU and its time variation are remarkably imprecise and are far from robust (Staiger, Stock, and Watson 1997, 2001; Stock 2001). NAIRU estimates are obtained from estimates of the Phillips curve— the relationship between the inflation rate, on the one hand, and the unemployment rate, measures of inflationary expectations, and variables representing supply shocks on the other. Typically, inflationary expecta- tions are proxied with several lags of inflation and the unemployment rate is entered with lags as well. The NAIRU is recovered as the constant in the regression divided by the coefficient on unemployment (or the sum of the coefficient on unemployment and its lags). The notion that the NAIRU might vary over time goes back at least to Perry (1970), who suggested that changes in the demographic com- position of the labor force would change the NAIRU.
    [Show full text]